World’s lightest material is developed by California researchers

Talking Points Memo : Researchers at HRL Laboratories, Caltech, and the University of California, Irvine have created the world’s lightest material—ultralight metallic microlattice. The researchers poured a liquid material into the microlattice pattern and hardened it by exposing it to UV light, writes Carl Franzen for Talking Points Memo. Electroless nickel—an alloy of nickel and phosphorous—was then poured onto the pattern very precisely, forming a 100-nanometer-thin uniform coating. The resulting material is 99.99% air and has a density of only 0.9 mg/cc. Much lighter than Styrofoam, it floats to the ground like a feather when dropped, according to William Carter of HRL, one of the authors of a recent Science paper on the subject. However, it is the structure itself that is important, not the material it is made from. According to Carter, his team can “make the same structure out of many different materials,” including polymers and ceramics. Developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, such ultralight cellular materials could be used in thermal insulation, batteries, and acoustics.